This exotic and very popular tourist destination has always long been in our bucket list. And it finally came to fruition! Rio de Janeiro or just plain Rio is the second most populous city in Brazil. While not the cleanest city that we’ve visited it had a lot to offer to the visitors who come just for the adventure and the unique experience, eclectic cuisine, multicultural and ethnically diverse. Brazil is also the most populous Roman Catholic country in the world! Although extremely popular because of its annual Carnival celebration it is more affordable that many of the places we’ve already visited both in Europe and the Americas.

Tommy and Oya Holgado, Trini and I woke up early to eat breakfast since our tour starts at 9:00am. You know it’s going to be a muggy day when the temperature (88F) and the humidity (88%) are the same! Not sure if the clouds helped at all but we started perspiring as soon as we were out of the tour van!

Our tour guide picked us up in our hotel – Arena Leme Hotel – just a few steps to the popular Copacabana Beach. Half of the 15 tourists were Brazilians, two were from Argentina, two English-speaking guys, and the four of us. Our guide is multi-lingual, speaking rapid Portuguese, then switching to Spanish and lastly English for our benefit and the other English-speaking tourists. It was an all-day tour with plenty of walking. We visited Sugarloaf Mountain (1,299 ft above the harbor)taking the cable car twice to get to the summit with a breath taking view of Rio and Guanabar Bay that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

The cable car that took us to the Sugarloaf peak.

Sugarloaf Mountain (named for its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated loaf sugar) as seen from Corcovado where Christ the Redeemer is located.

Soccer is extremely popular all over the world and Brazil is one of the many countries that consider this sport to be a part of their national identity. It has won the FIFA World Cup five times, the most of any teams (remember Pelé?). Therefore a visit to the Macaraña Stadium was really something to experience even if we didn’t get to see the field. I could just imagine the thundering roars of almost 200,000 soccer fans during a game.

We also stopped by the pyramid-shaped Metropolitan Cathedral with its simple but impressive interior decorated with colorful stained glasses extending to the very top of the cathedral.

Before lunch we headed to Rio’s historical center and walked Seleron Street. It was more of an alley considering how narrow it is. The entire length of the street was covered with amazing vibrant colorful tiles on both sides and the walkway each having their own messages. While there we saw a long queue in front of a street vendor waiting to order their specialty – Piña Colada! We ordered mango juice sin álcool and done manually with side shows of zooming flies all over! No matter what was in that concoction it helped refresh us and temporarily kept us cool from the heat and humidity!

Our Brazilian tour guide taking our selfie!

I will post Part 2 later as there are plenty of photos we took especially at Christ the Redeemer.